#American Idiot. But also Delays

[aeolianblues]

Also! Guys I'm doing a 2004 special on my show tonight, in fact, it's not really my show anymore. We're combining two shows together to have a 3-hour chunk block of just 2004 music!

[mediumgayitalian]

“Can I come over tomorrow?”

Nico’s hands still on the stubborn pillowcase. “To…my cabin?”

“Yes.”

“Um.” He resumes, sliding slowly away from Will’s wide round eyes, stuffing the puffy square of feathers into its fabric prison. The ghost of geese past are not happy with him. He is their prince. They will submit. “Yeah? You could all those other times, too.”

“Yeah, but I want to come over.”

“Yes,” Nico agrees, wondering if this is perhaps one of those moments Kayla warned him about. Has it reached day five of Will not sleeping? He doesn’t think so. He was napping when Nico came into the infirmary this morning to help with the tidying he promised to do. At least he was drooling enough that Nico hopes he was sleeping. “You mentioned.”

“So I can?”

“Yes, Will.”

Maybe it’s just an American thing. Nico has been noticing some Moments lately. He’s not sure if all teenagers have unanimously decided on some code they’d like to speak in during the few months he was busy defeating his great grandmother, or if maybe he’s finally stuck around long enough to notice, but nobody says what they mean, nowadays.

(He has gathered, thus far, that ‘on fleek’ is a synonym for ‘aflame’, although ‘yeet’ continues to evade him. Perhaps because Cecil and Lou appear to have indulged in the sick delight of replacing their every word with the term with the sole purpose to Confuse. Or perhaps, as Will has so indicated, they have each endured one concussion to many and are beyond any hope.)

“Sick!” That one Nico knows, at least. “I’ll come by after my morning shift? Connor got cursed by the Hypnos, Hecate, and Aphrodite cabins this morning so I have to do brain surgery before he forgets how to feel genuine human connection again, but I’ll be done by noon. Probably. I mean, Connor has a thick skull, genuinely I mean, which is why his lobotomy has been delayed so many times, but so long as I —”

It has been under Nico’s notice lately that Will eyes, genuinely, sparkle. He has read the cliche time and time again and rolled his eyes almost every time: diamonds sparkle. Water sparkles. Snow sparkles. Eyes reflect, and sometimes glow with reflection. They do not sparkle. To claim a set of eyes are sparkling is to profess to the world and all capable of registering your words that you are a brainless idiot who cannot dredge up from the depths of your mind, the most barren and bereft back corners, a single unique or clever comparison; a minutely original way to describe excitement or animation.

And yet.

Will is indeed very animated, and very excited about very many things, and it shows on his face; in the wideness of his grins, the springing mass of his curls, the stilted and flailing gilt of his languid limbs. It also shows, perhaps most obviously, in his genuinely magnificent eyes — Nico has seen the Logan Sapphire. He has touched the precious thing with reverent hands, stared in awe as it thrust out the light shine upon it like the golden ichor of Ouranous swirling with the sweet saltwater to birth Love Incarnate. He knows glittering, he knows gleaming, shimmering and shining and twinkling.

Will’s eyes sparkle, like the very tip of a mountaintop, like the crackling ends of a flame, like dewdrops on spider silk. It is transfixing. It is alluring.

“—ico. Nico! Hello-o?”

It is also a trap.

“Sounds great,” Nico says loudly, voice like cold soda over vanilla ice cream. He clears his throat, twice, to no avail. His vision begins to blur as the heat pouring off of his face warps the air. “Um. See you then?”

Will nods, or at least Nico hopes he does. His curls bounce, anyway. They are hard to miss. They remind Nico tangentially of how laughter sounds, unimpeded by shame; how the shimmering satin of a ribbon would curl and bend under the smooth slide of the scissor’s blade.

(His father’s circuit of jesters often included poets playwrights. They also doubled as Nico’s babysitters. Surely no lasting consequences, that.)

“Yes!” He flashes a smile, then, and it becomes imperative to note that his eyes squint at the force of it, and his slightly-too-big teeth brush his bottom lip, and he has, in fact, on each cheek, a dimple.

Now, Will is often and even frequently called Apollo Junior by just about every living soul in camp, up to and including Immortal Camp Director And Horse, Chiron; and uproariously once even Mr D, God of Wine. Allegedly, as taunted by Kayla, even by Will’s own mother. The golden hair and unfortunate habit of winking and legs for days do most definitely create an image.

Nico, however, contrarian he be, must deny: he has seen Apollo. Apollo is beautiful and golden and charming, but Will is not quite his spitting image. Will, more aptly, is the son of the Sun. He glows; the glare of his smile leaves impressions behind in the cells one’s eyes, the glide of his limbs is almost dragging, languid. To look at him is to commit yourself to blinding. To seek so desperately the solace of the light as to ignore the unsettling sting of the burn.

“I can’t wait!”

As a blissful cloud moving in front of the solar system’s brightest star saves your eyes the eternal fate of darkness, Will’s duty so saves Nico from an eternity of shadow. He returns, humming softly and horribly, to his work, sifting through folders and updating patient files, and Nico exhales the breath setting foundations in his lungs, slumping forward in fervent relief. A melancholic reprieve from the summer rays, if only for a moment.

He waves goodbye, or at least he hopes that he does, rushing out the infirmary doors and tripping down the rickety porch steps.

“Hurrying somewhere, Nicholas Claus?” drawls Mr. D, throwing darts a perilously balanced apple atop the horns of a satyr bleating in morse code.

“That was not even an attempt,” responds Nico, and hurries away before he can be dolphinized. Dolphinified? Made into a bottle-nosed beast. (Why bottle? Of all comparisons to make, who decided bottles were the utmost separate object to which the snout of the slippery beasts should be named? Oh, wait, drunk people. Bottles. Okay. Mystery solved.)

He manages, in his heroic retreat across the common, not to destroy entire swathes of grass and plants, a feat for which the Muses could perhaps write epics about. Truly he is capable of the utmost restraint and self-control. He does raise several full sized wolf skeletons, but they seem primarily preoccupied with hunting down the the Stolls, so a win-win as far as Nico is concerned. Probably not for Connor, who is apparently cursed or concussed, he doesn’t remember exactly, but he has managed thus far with his startling amount of daily braincell loss so by statistic and happenstance he is bound to survive another incident.

“There has to be away to shut myself off,” Nico says, out loud to himself, proceeding the slam of his cabin door and the heavy breathing upon it. He turns to his altar. “You mentioned an off button, Father. I don’t suppose it has been successfully implemented.”

No answer comes forth. He indulges in a brief moment of self pity, wherein the Nico who lives in his brain clears his throat, digs around the messy confines of his mind to find an imaginary black hoodie, slips it on, digs around again for a dagger, and stabs himself, choking and twitching pitifully. Real Nico then walks with great purpose to the exact geological centre of the stone cabin.

“Okay,” he says again. He nods, once, narrowing his eyes in determination. The Nico in his brain opens one curious eyelid. (Does Will do psychiatric assessments?) “Okay, this is. Hm.”

It is not the first time they have been alone together, after all.

In the weeks following Gaea’s defeat and Will Solace’s nonstop, irritating persistence, Nico has been thrust in his proximity an incredible number of times. From his three day stay, during which he was simply so unconscious for so long his father was concerned enough to manifest onto the mortal plane and poke at his soul until he responded, to his unofficial indoctrination (ha) as a nurse, to camp clean-up efforts, to cabin renovation, to general life — they have become friends. Coworkers, at least. Together they make the camp a little more bearable for everyone in it, including Nico. It is rewarding work. It is illuminating work; Will is a good teacher, and he is funny, and he is good company (and he happens to have very long legs that he does not bother to cover up very often and Nico has eyes that do what they please). They have been in Nico’s cabin together several times over the last few weeks.

Never before has Will come over without some kind of stated purpose.

At least, not and absence he has made so obvious. True, the renovations took longer than expected, and the paint on the east wall is smudged from where Nico shoved Will, shrieking, off the stepstool, and they have perhaps, on occasion, used Nico’s illegal Wii when they were meant to be helping Annabeth make plans for Capture the Flag, but —

But.

Intent.

Is important.

It has been made abundantly clear to Nico over the summer that he has friends upon which he can rely. Reyna has made a point to Iris Message him at whatever Roman tryhard time she believes he should be awake, prompting an attempted murderous shadow travel that left him unconcious in Missouri and at the unfortunate end of many people’s shouting. And Will’s friends, who can perhaps at this point be called his friends also, have created a game entitled “How Many Grapes Can We Flick At Nico During Lunch Before He Goes Ballistic And Sends Us To Purgatory For A Little While” (four), which they are inclined and inspired to play every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Piper enjoys dragging him around to do Things. Jason is just around constantly. (Does he sleep? Nico should check on that properly.)

He had a point, somewhere. He’s sure he did.

It was maybe the impending anxiety attack, helpfully informs Brain Nico.

“Ah,” regular Nico replies, then grapples around for his least favourite pillow, slams it into his face, and screams at the top of his lungs for several minutes.

Brain Nico decides once again that commentary is the way.

I think we are an all powerful demigod of something, he muses. Dirt, maybe? Bad vibes? I can’t quite remember.

“The dead?” inquires regular Nico.

Do you think those years isolated in the Labyrinth perhaps situated us firmly on the shores of mentally unwell? responds he, blissfully unhelpful.

“I think that was Tartarus, actually,” says regular Nico, and promptly banishes his brain self to the deepest recesses of his mind, among memories of the taste of liquid fire and Calculus.

With the remaining, functioning (well.) part of his brain, he places both palms on the cool floor and attempts to focus.

Juicy Fruit It gets right to ya Juicy salt Hmmm Juicy Fruit, The taste the taste that’s —

For the love of all holy things, Nico begs his brain. It doesn’t work, but what ever really goes right in his life, so he pushes past the increasingly louder replays of eighties commercial jingles and maps out the ground below the cabin floor, pushes through the layers of underground.

Ah. Perfect.

He pulls up the very aptly placed skeleton of a cat, letting it scratch and sniff about his cabin before cautiously approaching him.

“You will be sure to tell it to me straight,” Nico says solemnly, holding out his hand. The cat bobs its nasal cavities in and out of Nico’s fingers and, apparently deciding him to be worthy of its attention, rams its skull against his knuckles. Nico snorts, running a fingernail along its cranial sutures and grinning as its purring echoes in his mind. “You seem very wise.”

The cat’s caudal vertebrae rattle in indignation, miffed at the mere idea that it could be anything other than wise. Nico is honestly quite impressed by its ability to glare without actual eyeballs, eyelids, or thought power.

“I am going to name you after my sister and pray that’s not weird,” Nico says. “I mean, I don’t think she would mind. You’re pretty cool, actually, and Hazel’s cool, kind of, so. Win win.”

Hazel the Cat seems unbothered by her christening, curling up in Nico’s lap. He runs his hand from cranial base to coccyx, finger dipping and bumping along the ridges of her spines, and settles against the cool floor, attempting to breathe evenly.

“It’s just.” He swallows. It takes a try or two, to work around the massive stone borrowed in his throat, and Hazel the Cat nips playfully at his fingers until his lungs settle again. “Before we had something to do, you know? We’d be cutting bandages, and he’d be all, hey, did you know bandages are mentioned in one of the first ever medical manuscripts and definitely predate it by many hundreds of years, and I would say I did, actually, I talked to the guy who made that clay tablet, and his eyes would get all wide and he’d be like no way, tell me everything, and then I would just talk forever.” Nico huffs. “We had something to talk about, you understand. Something to do.”

Nico tries to imagine what Hazel his Sister would say. Probably something along the lines of you are an impossible person, which is code for I have about as much luck as you do in this century, pal, the best I’ve got is hope for the best and remember adults no longer smack you for standing wrong. Which. Fair.

Hazel the Cat just purrs in his head again. It’s as encouraging as anything, he supposes.

“Am I supposed to have…conversation starters? He likes twizzlers and intentionally bad poetry. Maybe I could do something with that?”

Hazel the Cat shrugs at him.

“It’s not even — okay, it’s not just that, though. What is — how close is close enough in a casual setting? Or too close? How am I meant to greet him? Am I supposed to offer something? Make something? What do I do if there’s a lull in conversation? Or if it’s all lulls? Oh, gods, how much silence is socially appropriate —”

Hazel the Cat twists in his hold, meeting his eyes as if to say well I don’t think you’ll be struggling with that last one.

“Shush,” he tells her, but his mouth is twitching. “I’m just — I don’t want him to finally realize I’m weird. Or boring, gods. He’s such a hyper person, you know? He never stops. And I am supposed to entertain him! I think!”

This time he can actually hear his sister’s voice, in the back of his mind — you’re such a dummy. Ringed with fondness from the many times she’s said it to him, shoulders nudged carefully together, head knocked gently against his. You are weird and boring. Most people are.

“Ugh,” he sighs, tipping his head back until it rests against the mattress. “Friendship is hard work.”

Hazel the Cat swishes her tail, rattling the discs of bone like a rattlesnake. It’s a surprisingly soothing sound, like rain pinging softly against his window, or the flutter of the poplar trees outside of his father’s palace. Unconsciously he matches his breathing to it, slowing until it’s even, gentle, deep. His eyes, without any direction from his brain, drift until they blanket his hazy eyes, heavy as stone..

“S’not that serious,” he murmurs to himself, soothed under the weight of his feline friend. “S’just Will, I guess.” A beat. He smiles, slightly, a small, curling thing, mimicking the coiled heat in his belly. “It’s just Will.”

———

part two

[eoieopda]

meet me at the bar (ksj)

You're supposed to be staring down the barrel of the last — and most important — examination of your life, but you only have eyes for your study buddy.

Pairing: Kim Seokjin x AFAB!Reader Type: One Shot | Fluff w/ Smut | 18+ — Minors DNI Word Count: 7.5k AU: Law school, study-buddies, best friends to lovers, highly educated idiots in love CW: Bad jokes, Latin, fingering (v), unprotected sex (p in v), Seokjinnie hits it from the back. A/N: My inaugural Seokjin smut is dedicated to my donsaeng-in-law (see what I did there?) @yoongiphoria, who is now embarking on this stupid, stupid gatekeeping journey IRL. Best of luck, my lil love. I'll be waiting for you on the other side of the war! MJ FIGHTING ~ Big ups to my other lil love, M, for beta reading 💕 I posted an epilogue drabble on 7/26/23. Also: This is written based on my experience in the American legal (educational) system. I was, frankly, too lazy to study up on South Korean law for a fanfic, lol. ⚠️ 18+ only ⚠️ minors will be blocked, on sight. my content is not for you. i do not want to interact with you. please respect my boundaries.

You are not spiraling.

You are a paragon of health and wellness, you tell yourself as you gulp down a mug of coffee that is still far too hot, like you’ll die without it. 

More bitter than the taste on your tongue is the realization that you might die with it —  your third cup in fewer hours. As far as you can tell, though, it’s a win-win situation: You’ll either generate enough anxious energy to finalize your property law flashcards, or you’ll drop dead before you have to review them.

And you won’t have to take that exam…

And you won’t have to pay off your student debt…

Besides, you figure, the stomach ulcer you’re likely inflicting on yourself will be infinitely less painful than dragging your under-caffeinated corpse through yet another day of studying. Another eight, consecutive hours spent forcing forgotten subjects back into your maxed-out brain. 

It’s worth it, you repeat to yourself, though this gauntlet has turned out to be a full-time job that steals, rather than pays. You can faint on top of the finish line, so long as some part of you crosses it.

You should be used to it by now, running a marathon at a dead sprint. That’s all you’ve ever done — push yourself. You attended your first day of preschool and never stopped, never took a breath. Through elementary, middle, and high school; then for four years of university. Going, going, going.

Stumbling through that eighteenth lap around the track, you kept going because — well, being a student was all you’d ever been. That’s your toxic trait, you’ve since discovered. Your concept of self is rooted exclusively within the context of a classroom.

You didn’t know it at the time, but your decision to take the Law School Admission Test — or the HellSAT, as you’ve come to call it — might have been the start of a quarter-life crisis. But you didn’t stop there. No, you took that score and ran with it. Slapped it onto every application as a desperate plea for acceptance. 

When you received your admission letter, you were a bright-eyed twenty-two-year-old with a bachelor’s degree and a vaguely defined dream.

Call it naïveté or call it gravitas, there wasn’t a doubt in your smooth little brain that law school was the logical next step to take. That being intelligent and hard-working made you well-equipped for the challenge that came with pursuing a Juris Doctor. After all, you’d spent nineteen years delaying gratification — what difference would three more make?

Within the first hour of your orientation, you — a professional student — had already learned something new: You were a masochist and, frankly, somewhat of an idiot.

Thankfully, you weren’t alone. 

Sitting — dissociating, more like — at a nearby table was a lanky boy you’d first noticed on your tour of the law building. His glassy-eyed stare was aimed somewhere in the middle-distance, and even though his slightly agape mouth said nothing, it communicated everything. He was the only other person in that atrium who looked the way you felt: scared shitless and riddled with buyer’s remorse. A can crushed under the boot of self-doubt.

It was the first time you and your wobbly knees went running in his direction, but it wouldn’t be the last.

He was so deep in a daze at that moment that he didn’t notice the way you threw yourself into the open chair next to him, didn’t look up at the scrape of wooden legs against the granite floor beneath them. He nearly jumped out of his skin when you announced your presence with words, however. 

It was less of an introduction — the way people in a society tend to greet each other for the first time, ever — and more of a twister. Words whipped through the air at a dangerously high velocity, no syllable ending before you started on the next. Just one breath, a few consonants, and a pair of dark eyebrows shooting up to cower behind his bangs. 

“Was — was that Korean?” He asked when you finally ran out of wind. 

Judging by the way his wide eyes softened, you knew he wasn’t making fun of you. You’d simply scrambled his brain so thoroughly that you’d transcended the known limits of language.

More of a question than an answer, you peeped, “I think so. Maybe?” You wavered with a sigh. “I’m no longer confident that I know any of the things I thought I knew, though. So, um, don’t quote me on that.”

“You’re giving me too much credit. I didn’t catch enough of whatever that was —” He gestured vaguely. “— To even attempt to quote you.”

Within seconds and without knowing, he’d disarmed the bomb ticking away in your gut. He must’ve sensed it, too, because his face lit up so completely that you had to look away. One glance at the floor-to-ceiling windows confirmed that the sun hadn’t reappeared at that time of night. 

That rush of warmth you felt then  — that absolutely insane brightness — was powered exclusively by the grin taking up the entirety of his face. If that megawatt smile alone hadn’t rerouted your oncoming anxiety attack, the distinct, squeaking laugh that erupted out of his chest would’ve done the job. 

You doubled over, either under the weight of your own giggling or with the relief you felt in finding someone equally lost. Eyes swimming with mirth, you wiped wetness from your cheekbone and snorted. “Was that a windshield wiper?”  

“No, that was embarrassing.” 

The tips of his ears and the apples of his cheeks went some dizzy shade of pink. 

He rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck with one hand and held the other out to shake yours.

“And I’m Kim Seokjin.”

Now, when the door of your apartment flies open without warning, it’s that same savior standing on your threshold. That designation may be melodramatic, but if that brown paper bag contains what you suspect it does, it’s deserved.

Seokjin, patron saint of breakfast sandwiches, flops down on the couch that stretches along the opposite side of your coffee table. From where you sit on the floor — hunched over your notes like a hobgoblin — you reach out your expectant arms and make grabby hands in the space between you.

You see mischief flash in his eyes, but only for a second. In the next, he’s pretending like he doesn’t see you; doesn’t hear your petulant little whines. He extends long legs out over the cushions, clutches the bag to his chest, and lets his head roll back to rest on the couch’s arm.

“Wanna know what I did today instead of practice essays?” He asks, eyes unfocused on the ceiling above.

All you actually want is whatever that smell is. You can’t stop staring at the bag of food in his hands. If you try hard enough, maybe you can summon some sort of psychic energy, make it levitate towards you.

He doesn’t wait for your response. “The math.”

“Huh?” 

You frown; and as you do, you reluctantly shift your gaze from Seokjin’s hands to his face. He isn’t looking your way, but you can tell he’s grimacing based solely on the way his jaw twitches. It’s a miracle he hasn’t ground his teeth to dust over the past three years, given how often he makes that face.

In an attempt to ease the tension in his posture, you tease, “Didn’t we go to law school because we can’t do math?”

He cracks an unwilling smile. A tiny one, but a smile nonetheless. Without turning his head, he extends his arm out in your direction. In the split second it takes for yours to spring forward like a snake, that blessed bag dangles; the scent of sausage, egg, and cheese wafts through the air and restores your will to live. Clutching your prize, halfway to feral, you tear into it without hesitation.

As you bite off more than you can chew, Seokjin prepares his rant with a sigh, “So, consider this.”

“Mmphf,” you advise through a mouthful of greasy bliss.

“Bar exam prep takes eight weeks, right? If we’re only counting business days, that’s forty — forty days, for a minimum of eight hours each.”

He becomes more restless, the more he talks. Heated, he sits bolt upright and turns wild-eyed to you.

Oh, he’s gone full-tilt insane.

“Three-hundred-and-twenty hours, then. And if you think about that in terms of our clerk wages —” He slaps his hands down on his thighs for emphasis. “— at 2,625 won per hour —” 

Then, he points to you, as if the increasing volume of his voice wasn’t already holding you hostage.

“— we’ve sacrificed nearly two million won in income, just by studying for this fucking test.”

You swallow down the last bite of your sandwich, which you downright hoovered while Seokjin took the path of most resistance. After clearing your throat, your interjection overlaps with his next point: 

“Seokjinnie, why didn’t you just double our monthly —”

“That’s after we paid ninety million in tuition, hundreds of thousands on study materials and registration fees —”

You cut him off. “Is this your way of asking me to Venmo you for breakfast?” 

He freezes, caught fully off-guard. Shocked eyes widen like you’re the ridiculous one. “Of course not!”

He waves you off like his thoughtful gesture is no big deal. Then, like he’s tired himself out, he sinks back onto your couch. From his back, he grumbles with crossed arms, “‘M just sayin’ that I’m tired of this shit.”

You can’t help but giggle at the pathetic pout working down the corners of his mouth. “Felt,” you agree, though it feels a little bit like a lie.

Truth be told, you feel more awake now than you did ten minutes ago, and you can’t attribute it to the coffee — not when the evidence so clearly indicates otherwise. 

Over the course of three years, you’ve built up quite the case against yourself. You’ve made the following findings of fact:

Whenever he pops up, Seokjin brings your mood up with him. Even now, as he marinates in anguish on your couch, his presence gives you a reason not to beat yourself unconscious with the four-kilogram prep book that sits beside you on the rug. Makes you hate your circumstances a little less, if only because you share them with him.

And, for a rapidly deflating balloon, you have to concede that Seokjin looks stunning this morning. 

Unlike you and your day-three hair, he somehow had the energy to wash his. The mid-sections of some strands are still damp; the parts that aren’t frame his face in fluffy waves. His shampoo is something fruity mixed with something crisp — grapefruit and mint, maybe? — and it floods your senses, causing question marks to replace any coherent thoughts you might otherwise have. You’d be lying again if you said you didn’t want to find out for sure how soft those tresses really are.

The verdict? 

Well, the jury’s still out, but you know you’re guilty. 

If being down this bad for your best friend isn’t a criminal offense, it should be.

You shake your head to clear it. To smother the flame licking up the inside of your belly, you grab the certified mood killer off the coffee table and hold it up in front of you. Surely, the cure for a sexual tension headache is an eight-centimeter stack of color-coded, neon index cards covered in information you shouldn’t need to memorize in the first place.

“Exam’s in one week,” you say with a shiver.

Seokjin rolls onto his side to look forlornly at you. You are not looking at his bare hip bone, which appears where the hem of his shirt shifts from the waistband of his joggers. Nope.  

You continue the search for the point you’re trying to make. “I can barely spell mortgage, let alone explain what the fuck to do with one.”

“Don’t think I know what land even is at this point,” he sighs. Dejected, he lets his arm go limp. It spills off the edge of the cushion and dangles until his knuckles brush against the rug. “What is this property you speak of?”

Biting back a grin is impossible, so you press your lips together instead. Just like that — just by Seokjin being Seokjin — the hellscape you willingly walked into gets a little brighter. Maybe, you think, you can do this.

You look down for a moment to shuffle up the cards you spent the better part of two days preparing. As you stare down at the staggering amount of knowledge you might be tested on, you can feel the crease returning between your eyebrows. Your grimace is back, too, like a reflex. 

If you make it through this experience without premature wrinkles, you’ll be shocked.

There’s shifting on the couch ahead, but you don’t look up until Seokjin breezes, “From this angle, it almost looks like you’re smiling.”

His arm is no longer dangling off the edge of the couch. His entire upper body is. Knees now hinged over the backrest for balance, he’s upside-down and smirking impishly at you.

He has to know you’re in love with him, right? How could he expect you not to be?

You clear your throat and arch a single eyebrow as a challenge. “What is the rule against perpetuities, Seokjinnie?”

Like you, he can recite it in full at a machine-gun rate of fire. It’s been beaten so far into your heads that you might utter it on your deathbeds, with your last gasping breaths.

“No interest in land is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the creation of the interest,” he responds with a smug smile. “Easy.”

It’s your turn to smirk. 

“Great. Now, what does any of that mean?”

Without missing a beat, he fires back, “Does anyone know?”

“Absolutely not. Next question!”

Having had the same day, every day, for seven weeks straight, Seokjin is struggling. He’s spent hundreds of hours on the same routine, feeling beaten down and burnt out, all the while. It goes like this:

Every morning, he wakes up and goes for a run in a feeble attempt to feel something other than dread. After that, he eats a lackluster breakfast, and then he promptly chains himself to his desk. When he finally gives himself permission to get up again, it’s dark out; and he’s too brain dead to check the hundred or so notifications that amassed on his phone during his fugue state.

Scratch that. There’s one person he responds to, no matter what. As far as everyone else is concerned, though, he’s a ghost.

Today is the first day out of the last fifty-five where Seokjin doesn’t feel like his brain is being hydraulically pressed. For the first time in too long, he fell into an old routine; one he’s missed. It started with a shower — and honestly, that was overdue — then, he swung by the café he’s frequented over the past three years. There, he made his usual order.

One iced americano, and one sausage-egg-and-cheese croissant with extra hot sauce.

Before he walked back up the block, he downed the former, but he didn’t touch the latter. The latter wasn’t for him, anyways. None of the breakfast sandwiches he ever stops for are.

The subsequent hours looked semi-similar to the three-hundred-and-twenty he’s already devoted to studying. Well, sort of. To be clear, the subject matter still sucks, and he’s still angry that he has to touch it at all, but he isn’t waiting for the sweet release of death in the same way he has been all summer. 

This might have something to do with the fact that, for the first time in nearly sixty days, he’s not on his own. 

More than that, he’s with you.

Having switched away from covenants, easements, and servitudes, he feels a slightly less stupid. Contract law is a little more straightforward and a little less caked in colonialism. Unfortunately, after six hours of burning all his brain cells on shit like liens, Seokjin has begun his descent into madness. 

The worms are digging in, he can’t focus, and neither of you can stop — fucking — laughing.

“I’ll give you a hint,” you giggle, shifting in your spot on the neighboring cushion. You give his knee a pat that feels a tiny bit patronizing, but that makes his pulse race, nonetheless. “It’s a Latin term.”

He snorts so loudly that you do a double-take, just to make sure it wasn’t a sneeze. You both stare at one another for a beat, then comes the eruption.

“It’s all Latin!” He roars. 

To muffle the way he’s wheezing, Seokjin slaps his hands over his face. It’s already tear-stained from his abject failure to keep his shit together. At least he can attempt to hide how red he knows it is.

Your laugh comes straight from your belly. You double over completely when his comes out in squeaks, hand reaching out to squeeze his forearm. It used to bother him, the sound he made when he truly loses it, but it doesn’t any more. 

How could it, when it makes you cling to him like that?

Wiping at your cheeks, you take a deep breath, then sigh, “Does it help if I give you the translation?”

He doubts it because you just pinched your bottom lip between your teeth, and now, his mind is blank. 

Really, it’s a fucking miracle he graduated at all with you around. You and that face you make when you concentrate have always made it impossible for him to do so. It’s why he wasn’t paying attention in class when this shit was taught in the first place, he realizes now. 

To cool himself down, Seokjin grabs the Camelbak bottle off the coffee table, realizes too late it’s yours and not his — oh, well — and shoves the straw into his mouth. He nods once, firmly, and sucks in as much water as he can. 

It all sprays back out of his mouth when you say:

“Naked promise.”

He had always wondered what his life would look like if it ever flashed before his eyes. Now, he knows. It’s not a montage of his finest moments, the most recent of which would not have made the cut. All he sees is you, wide-eyed, glancing between him and the wet spot that’s now soaking through your sweatshirt.

You press your lips together, probably to keep from laughing in his face. It’s a valiant effort on your part and a kind gesture, but honestly, he doesn’t deserve it. His fingers twitch as he clutches the bottle, wanting nothing more than to dump the remaining water on his face. He embarrasses himself more often than not, but this stings his cheeks like a sunburn.

“I am —” he raises his hands, flustered, “So sorry. I don’t remember waking up in a sitcom this morning, but I, uhhh, clearly did.”

When you stand up, you’re grinning. And not in that scary way you do when you’re about to retaliate for some prank he’s pulled. No, that look on your face is genuine amusement. 

Thank god.

You shrug as you cross your arms over your torso and grip the hem of your sweatshirt with both hands. “All good, Seokjinnie,” you laugh. “This needed to be washed, anyway. You see that coffee stain?”

No. 

No, he does not see that coffee stain because the tank top underneath your sweatshirt is clinging to the wet spot as you tug the top layer up your stomach. He feels bad for staring — really, he does — but fuck, your skin looks soft. Like, so soft that he has to grip his water bottle to keep a grip on himself.

Eventually, your tank top separates from your sweatshirt. It falls back down to where it belongs, to Seokjin’s dismay, and the sweatshirt keeps going. 

“Nudum pactum,” you remind him as you pull the drenched hoodie over your head. Playfully, you toss it at him. It smacks against his chest, splays out over his lap. 

Once more with feeling: thank god. 

You sink back down beside him on the couch, and he can’t help but notice that you’re the tiniest bit closer than you were before. It’s innocent, just your bare knee bumping his shin as you re-cross your legs. Still, it leaves his tingling through the fabric of his joggers when you don’t move away.

The silence surges as it settles, crinkling like static in his ears. He almost doesn’t hear you when you ask him again: “What’s it mean?”

Uhhhh.

“It means —”

Unfortunately for him, the water he just forcibly ejected from his mouth didn’t help him. His throat is dry now, and he sounds strangled, he’s sure. The way you’re watching him so intently doesn’t help one fucking bit, either.

Are you doing that on purpose?

You nudge him physically this time, knuckles connecting gently and playfully with his leg. He wonders if you can hear his heart hammering against the wall of his chest in all of this quiet. You might, he figures, especially when you tuck your hair behind your ear.

Instinctively, his eyes flick down to the length of your neck. Without a curtain of hair in the way, it’s even more exposed skin that he doesn’t know what the fuck to do with. Making matters worse for him, you tilt your head to the side expectantly. His breath catches when he tears his gaze away, back up, and sees the way you’re looking at him now.

You are absolutely — without a goddamn doubt — doing this on purpose.

If that’s the game you want to play, Seokjin can play it, too. He turns away from you to set the bottle back down on the coaster he took it from. As he does, he finally answers your question — the nonchalance he’s faking even sounds convincing.

“It’s an unenforceable promise,” he replies casually. “One with insufficient consideration.”

He rights himself in his seat, stretches a bit further backwards until he’s resting comfortably against the arm of the couch. You hide it well, but there’s a hint of a pout on your lips when you clock the newfound distance. 

Check, he smirks to himself, your move.

A flash of pink slips out. Your tongue wetting those lips before you prompt him more quietly than before, “And consideration is…?”

He slips up, makes the mistake of noticing the rise and fall of your chest as you take measured breaths. So, he sees, you’re buzzing with anticipation, too. He wonders if it’s him that’s having that effect on you, or the circumstances. 

For all he knows, it could be pent up steam that you need to release. Stress weighing down your body that you want to get off.

Fuck, he wants to get you off.

He swallows thickly. “Can’t get something for nothing. There has to be an exchange, otherwise it’s meaningless.”

You say nothing, so he keeps talking.

“Quid pro quo, essentially,” Seokjin adds. He chuckles slightly when he realizes. “See? Told you. It’s all fucking Latin.”

The corner of your mouth twitches at his joke, but you don’t make a sound. The hand that previously pushed against his leg inches closer, just barely. It’s such a small shift that you don’t seem to realize that you’re moving it. 

Maybe you feel that pull, too; the one he’s been fighting since you barged into his life without warning. 

Maybe the consideration has been there from the start; a promise for a promise. I’ll jump if you do. Because it’s always been that way, hasn’t it? Since orientation.

Pulling all-nighters in the library, developing matching caffeine dependencies, getting sick too often from the strain of it all. 

You and him.

Laughing quietly in the back of lectures, cold sweats through cold calls, bitching about unpaid internships while you spend indisposable income at the bar down the block without acknowledging the irony.

There are only two real differences between this night and that first one, he notes.

Now, Seokjin isn’t questioning every decision he’s ever made that led him to this point. He’s not scared shitless, not really. Not when you’re around.

You cut through the silence with a sigh that’s barely more than an exhale, so breathy that your voice dissipates as soon as it hits the air.

“Seokjin.”

He could probably hear a pin if you dropped one — can hear everything you don’t say. It’s all packed tight inside that utterance of his name like gunpowder, locked and loaded. 

So, who shoots first?

You shift again. Now, when you speak, it’s deliberate and in a language he can parse.

“Tell me you want me, too.”

Bang!

His body answers for him, pushes off from where he leans until he can get his knees underneath him. He’s waited three years to kiss you, but he can delay gratification for the brief time it takes to overtake you. Pinned with his palms bearing weight on either side of your head, you wind up caged in and breathless beneath him. His right knee occupies the space between your spread thighs.

Again, it’s a miracle he’s made it this far with you around.

He hums, beyond pleased with the position he finds himself in. “Maybe. Tell me if I got the answer right.”

“Oh my god.” You toss your head back to the extent that you can, which admittedly isn’t far. Your frustration rolls off you in waves, heat palpable. “I’ll kill you, I swear.”

“Sounds admissible to me,” he teases further. He flexes an eyebrow. “Isn’t that an exception to the prohibition of hearsay evidence? Speaks to motive, I think.”

Seokjin has no idea why he’s riling himself up like this. If he could shut up — just this once — he could be kissing you by now. You seem to be aware of that fact, too, because you grip his shirt so desperately, one right move might tear it.

You huff out a laugh despite the circumstances,  “This friendship is over, by the way, in case that’s not clear.”

That tiny smile on your face spreads to his. Not over, he knows, just modified. Amplified, finally. Knowing that, he continues to push his luck. 

“Can I make one more joke?”

“So over!” You emphasize with a wail.

He takes a second to center himself before hitting you with award-winning drama, sincerity dipped in the kind of humor he never misses out on with you: 

“You have adversely possessed my heart.”

Your jaw drops at how stupid that line was, but you reign it in just in time for his lips to crash into yours. 

It almost knocks the wind out of him, the way the pieces fall with force into place. They slot together easily, just like you do. With fingers clinging, the weight of his body molding overtop of yours. 

You kiss him until he forgets what life tasted like without your tongue licking into him, your little moans melting in his mouth — until you break apart, gasping for air. Panting, you ask, “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting on you?” 

He doesn’t, no, not at all. Thankfully, you take his stunned silence for what it’s worth. After relinquishing your grip on his shirt, you bring your hands up to cup his face gently in your palms. 

With you touching him like this, he has no option but to stare down at you. Bit redundant, he thinks, since his focus has always been locked right here, right on you, by choice. Given that, it’s a little funny that he managed to miss every signal you’ve apparently sent him. But really, it doesn’t necessarily surprise him to hear that he’s even dumber than he thought.

You kiss him slowly this time, briefly, before nipping affectionately at his bottom lip. It drives him exactly as crazy as you want it to; makes his cock twitch inside his joggers, makes his brain foggy with a potent combination of fondness and filth.

Do you have any idea how many times he’s thought about this? He’s genuinely wondering because even he doesn’t know. He’s lost count of all the times he’s watched you nibble on your own lip and wished it was his instead. A million or more, if he has to guess.

Seeming to sense the way you've scrambled his brain, you nudge the tip of his nose with yours and giggle.

Seokjin can’t help but grin. “What’s so funny?”

“Thought of a good one,” you answer. Your smirk does his head in. The contrasting, goofy wiggle of your eyebrows squeezes his heart. “Better than yours, I think.”

He kisses you quick and hums, “Oh?”

You nod. 

The suspense is killing him. So is the way your clothed cunt grinds ever so slightly against his thigh. 

Fuck. 

He wants you, he wants you, he wants you. 

“You gonna make me come, Seokjin, or do I have to wait for you to file a subpoena?”

You may have to seek a refund for the prep course you paid for. 

For as long as you can remember, you’ve learned best through application. You could read the same chapter, over and over, and not absorb a word. The same was true with lectures, even more so when they’re pre-recorded rambles by the weirdest adjunct professors known to man. Sure, you may eventually memorize concepts this way, but they don’t sink in deeply enough to stay. You can’t use them in any way that helps you.

To no one’s surprise, no part of your civil procedure lecture sticks until it falls into your lap. 

Strike that. 

Until Seokjin loses his balance in trying to take his pants off, and falls onto your floor with a yelp.

A moment or two passes while you stare at each other in shock, but that dissolves quickly. And so do both of you, right into another fit of laughter that makes your shoulders shake. Then, you jump to your feet and hold your hands out to him.

Seokjin accepts them, though he doesn’t rely on them at all when he stands back up. He seems more than content just to hold onto you, whether or not he needs you to keep him steady. You have no complaints, for once in your life.

Shaking his head, he chuckles, “Venue change?”

“I think —” You hum and kiss the column of his throat. He swallows hard enough that you feel his Adam’s apple bob against your lips. So sensitive.  “This is what they call forum non conveniens.”

He’s having none of that, and you don’t necessarily blame him. As it turns out, the shoe isn’t terribly comfortable when it’s on the other foot.

You’re lifted without warning, bent over his shoulder, and hauled off in the direction of your bedroom before you can even squeak in protest. You drop like a bag of dirt — albeit a beloved bag of dirt — onto your mattress once he reaches it; his lips are on yours to swallow the gasp before it can leave your mouth.

As eager as his mouth are his hands, roaming down the curve of your waist and over your hips. With fistfuls of the pajama shorts you hadn’t bothered to change out of, his head dips down under your jaw. The warmth of his breath is quickly replaced by that of his tongue, flicking a short, languid line along your neck.

“Want you so fucking bad,” he breathes. A shiver shoots straight down your spine and you keen, head crashing gracelessly back against the pillows. “Just like this.”

And he means it — you can feel how true it is with him settled between your spread legs. He presses his hips forward to meet your clothed cunt, cock teasing you through four goddamn layers’ worth of fabric.

His lips flutter against your earlobe just seconds before his teeth graze your flesh. He continues, voice vibrating through his chest to yours, “All the time.”

You outright whimper when he grinds against you a second time. Halfway to crazy, you knot your fingers in his hair and wrap your legs around his back in a silent plea for friction. So hungry for him that it aches.

“Seokjin, need — oh, god.” 

You lose your train of thought the second his hand slides into the gap between your bodies. Long fingers slip below the waistband of your shorts and panties, too. He doesn’t stop there. Not with fingertips whispering over the mound of your cunt, not until he finds you wet and wanting.

So wet that you can hear it when the pad of his index finger runs along your slit.

His mouth curves against your neck, prompting you to shift your head on the pillow. You tilt your neck just enough to meet his eyes. 

To your surprise, he’s not smirking. Not even close. If anything, he looks awestruck. Like he’s finally realizing what he does to you, how your body reacts to him. From the looks of it, that discovery is flipping his whole damn world upside down.

For once, Seokjin doesn’t crack a joke and neither do you. It’s quiet, save for your tiny gasping breaths and the ripple of his fingertip swirling over your clit. Even the moan building in your chest gets the memo. It disappears somewhere in your throat when — fucking finally — that middle finger penetrates you.

And god, he sounds so wrecked when he finally speaks. 

“Tried to imagine it a thousand times, you know,” he murmurs. 

You clench around his finger as it curls upwards, shiver when he starts to stroke the sensitive spot along your front wall. His thumb picks up where his middle finger left off, pressing against your clit in a way that makes you mewl.

Seokjin only stops talking to kiss you deep and leave you dizzy. It’s too brief. If asked, you’d never be able to quantify what amount of time is enough, but you know that wasn’t, so you pout.

Ignoring your little whines, he continues with a hum, “How perfect you’d feel, if I ever got this lucky.”

Oh, Jesus Christ.

You laugh as you say it, but you’re dead serious: “If you keep talking to me like that, you’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

Marry me, why don’t you? Beautiful bastard.

“Threat or promise?” 

He adds a second finger; and suddenly, you’re not laughing anymore. No, the strangled sound you make while you grind against his palm isn’t funny at all, but you can’t care about that now. Your focus is stuck on remembering how to breathe. In, out. On the stars blinking behind your eyelids when they give up and flutter shut.

He works you open for him like he’s already attuned, like it’s the fiftieth time he’s finger-fucked you and not the very first. And, quite frankly, it’s embarrassing how little time it takes for him to pull you apart at the seams.

No one has ever made you cum with such little effort. You’re scared to learn what it’s like when he tries.

You catch the triumphant gleam in his eye in the split second before you bury your face in the crook of his neck. He’s earned it, you suppose, so you’ll let him relish the personal record he’s managed to set on his first time out. You might even let him brag about it, so long as he continues to make you tremble like this.

“Shit,” he chuckles low near your ear. 

If he sounds muffled, it’s because you’re still waiting for your system to reboot. He knows this, knows how fucking sensitive you are, and slides his fingers out of you as slowly as possible. Still, those aftershocks throttle you; the unintentional stimulation makes you jolt.

“Yes,” you nod helplessly, squeezing your eyes and jaw shut simultaneously. “Shit is right. Perfect analysis, no notes.”

A chaste kiss is placed on your temple. It’s petal soft and subak sweet, but it functions like a defibrillator. Within a split second, he’s revived you. Eyes now open again, you exhume your face from where you buried it and blink up at him. Warm brown eyes light up when you reappear.

He’s so fucking beautiful that you almost want to avert your eyes. Key word: almost. You’ll drink in the sight of him until you drown, you think.

Seokjin looks concerned. With a shy smile, he checks in: “You okay? We can stop right now if you’re not.”

You don’t know who they are, but you know that they don’t make them like him anymore. Which is a fucking bummer for the rest of the world — just not for you. This one is all yours.

“You quitting on me, Kim?” You let your knee fall inwards to nudge his side, and you pretend not to notice how boneless you still feel. “Didn’t wait all this time to tap out early, did you?”

He rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning, nonetheless. His warm palm massages the outside of your thigh affectionately, if only for a moment. Then, he pats his fingertips against the same spot. “Shorts off, champ.”

You follow his instructions and move to shimmy out of them, but not before snorting, “Champ?”

“Fine. Old sport?” He offers with a shit-eating grin. Your shirt smacks him in the face once you peel it off and chuck it at him. He pouts. “Hey!”

“Thanks, I hate it.” 

He tugs his shirt over his head, launches it over his shoulder without looking. Your unabashed stare immediately clocks the slight hint of his abdominal muscles. Lean, but not sharply contoured in a way that looks painful to touch. Soft. Perfect, even.

What lab were you engineered in?

“For someone with so many opinions, you don’t offer many suggestions.” He shoots you a pointed look while he unties the knot at his waistband drawstring. “What’s your proposal?”

You’d love to bite back at him. Really, you would, but he pulls his boxers down alongside his joggers, and every meaningful thought you’ve ever had goes flying out the fucking window. All that’s left is I want you, I want you, I want you.

Automatically, you reach out with a tentative hand, craving nothing more than to feel his velvet length in your hand. To your surprise, he stops you. He catches your hand in his, lifts it to his lips, and brushes a kiss over your knuckles.

“Rain check, baby,” Seokjin smiles against your skin. There it is. That’s the one. “Need to fuck you, posthaste, or I’ll simply pass away.”

You open your mouth to comment; he breezes right past you. He points to the mattress, then to the wall to your left. “On your side, love.”

That works, too.

“Face away from me.”

Never in your life have you moved so fast, all but throwing yourself down where he told you to. As you land with a slight bounce, you mouth to yourself, Posthaste? Nerd.

A second slips by, then Seokjin slips into the space behind you. His lips tickle the back of your neck when he kisses the base of it, causing you to gasp yet again. Maybe that’s just how you breathe when he’s around — like you don’t know how.

His hand drifts down the length of your side, passing over the doughy flesh of your ass. He gives it a squeeze for good measure — because of course he does — but he doesn’t linger, not now.

That hand continues until you feel his fingertips scratch affectionately at the back of your right thigh. He doesn’t need to ask; you lift your leg, allowing your knee to hinge overtop of his hand. Now that his hands are occupied, you offer yours to assist. 

This time, he doesn’t stop you when you wrap your fingers around his length. And fuck, there’s so much of it. Part of you wants to ask where the hell he thinks he’s going to fit all of it, but you’re not a quitter, so you keep your mouth shut. 

Seokjin shivers under your touch, breath catching in his throat so blatantly that you can hear it right behind your ear. 

“Hmmm,” you tease, squeezing the crown gently as you circle your wrist. “Does that work for you, champ?”

His forehead drops against your shoulder. The groan you force out of him is twice as long as necessary, followed by an unwilling laugh. “You’re right, okay? You’re fucking right. It’s awful. Just so fucking bad.”

Your thumb swipes over his leaking tip, smearing the bead of pre-cum waiting for you there. You’re relentless. “Sure you don’t like old sport better? Huh, buddy?”

“Baby,” he warns. There isn’t much heat to it, but it burns white hot in your core anyway.

The stretch of his cock does, too, when you finally stop fucking with him and start letting him fuck you. The breath he holds as he enters you slowly is let out in a shuddered groan when he bottoms out. Perfectly full and fully incapable of teasing him further, you simply melt back against his chest.

He’s careful to start, testing the waters and refusing to push you too far, too fast. You want more, though, you always have. Greedy, you rock your hips back against him to force him deeper into your weeping hole. He takes the hint, fingertips pressing bruises into the underside of your knee as he picks up his pace — and you’re far too blissed to care.

He pistons into you eagerly, deliberate. His hips clap against the flesh of your ass, but the sting of it all can’t compete with the way he splits you open. Makes you reach back to cling to any part of him you can get your hands on, claim whatever you find for keeps. Buried to the hilt, and somehow,  he’s still not close enough.

You’re close, if your fluttering walls have anything to say about it. You’re babbling, too, so lost in pleasure that you can only repeat — over and over — how fucking perfect he is. How perfect for you he is.

Seokjin peppers kisses down the curve of your shoulder as he thrusts. It’s the only real indication you have that he’s at a loss for words, too; that he’s compensating for the quiet. He kisses you with an open mouth, teeth grazing the space he finds, leaves a mess on your sweat-slicked skin.

“Fuck,” he grunts. You mewl. “Can’t stop thinking about —”

“Just like that, please.”

“— how many times I could’ve —”

You wail, “Shit, Seokjin, don’t stop. I’m so close.”

The staccato strokes will be the death of you, you’re sure of it. Thankfully, he doesn’t stop. Not when he kisses the back of your neck again, and not when he murmurs directly in your ear, “— had you like this, if I’d said something years ago.”

Please, please, please. 

It’s all you can say, again and again, as if he isn’t already giving you everything you want before you even ask for it. Responding to every movement you make, fucking into you with precision so that each vein of his cock brings friction where you crave it. Fucking you through your orgasm when it catches you in a riptide and sends you reeling.

“That’s it, baby.” His voice is soothing despite the recklessness of his thrusts. “So good for me. So fucking good.”

You’re still gushing when he snaps his hips forward and stills, cock twitching as he lets himself go inside of you. Still trembling when his head droops forward to nuzzle against your shoulder blade, and when you feel his breathing begin to slow in tandem with yours.

Once he pulls himself out of you, a few moments pass in fucked-out silence. It’s comfortable, if you ignore the mess between your thighs — and you do, for now. Your brain is too busy to waste time on that.

You’re exhausted and bordering on delirious when you say it, but that doesn’t make it any less true:

“I might love you, probably.”

He doesn’t respond immediately. He doesn’t move either, which makes you wonder if he’s fallen asleep with his face smushed into your bare back. But you feel the tiniest exhale through his nose; the kind of laugh you get from him when he’s too tired to be any louder.

His reply is muffled, lips still pressed against your skin, but you hear it perfectly.

For the record, he probably loves you, too.

Epilogue, posted 7/26/23.

final a/n: i have a follow-up drabble planned for these two! stay tuned 🥰

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[shitty-check-please-aus]

because I've had success asking for travel tips on here in the past

Scotland in June: What's It Like and What Do People Wear?

going off of Google average temperature data, it looks like it's close to Chicago temperatures in May and October- are you wearing shorts or are you dressing for the actual temperature? because here at least I feel like we push our luck in the spring and then bundle up too much too early in the fall

to be clear I don't give a shit if people clock that I'm a tourist, I think it's pretty easy to tell I'm an American and I don't even blend in in my own city because I dress like a kindergarten teacher, but I'm curious what the situation is like. And I want to know if I will need to plan on delaying my annual "putting winter clothes in storage" task

ALSO I'm sure I'll find stuff by googling but do you have anything weird about your trains that a tourist wouldn't know? I've ridden on Amtrak and Trenitalia no problem in the past but I see people on YouTube or Instagram in some countries being like "this idiot tourist thought their ticket meant they'd be able to sit down" and I would rather not be the tourist in that kind of scenario

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

mike luckovich :: [@mluckovichajc]

* * * *

"America last."

February 8, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

On Wednesday, the dysfunction of congressional Republicans plumbed new depths: Senate Republicans blocked a procedural vote to advance funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Supporting each of those nations is in America’s vital interest. Failing to do so undermines global order and brings America closer to active confrontation with Russia, China, and Iran, at least.

The defeat was expected because Donald Trump wants to continue the crisis at America’s southern border to advance his partisan political interest. But the move also advanced the partisan interests of another politician��Vladimir Putin. Like Trump, Putin is temporizing, biding time in the hope that the clock will run out on Ukraine’s resources to resist Russia’s invasion. In Donald Trump's world, the hierarchy of interests is Trump first, Putin second, and America last.

The notion that Trump has re-ordered the national interests to put America last is not mine. It belongs to Thomas L. Friedman, who wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes, The G.O.P. Bumper Sticker: Trump First. Putin Second. America Third. (Accessible to all.)

Friedman writes,

There are hinges in history, and this [aid bill] is one of them. What Washington does — or does not do — this year to support its allies and secure our border will say so much about our approach to security and stability in this new post-post-Cold War era. Will America carry the red, white and blue flag into the future or just a white flag? Given the pessimistic talk coming out of the Capitol, it is looking more and more like the white flag, autographed by Donald Trump. “Trump First” means that a bill that would strengthen America and its allies must be set aside so that America can continue to boil in polarization [and] Vladimir Putin can triumph in Ukraine . . . .

A meme is developing that asserts that the GOP has surrendered to Trump. While that may be true, the deeper truth is that Trump has delivered the GOP into the hands of Vladimir Putin. The GOP is no longer serving the interests of the Americans who elect Republicans to Congress but instead acts as a skulk of useful idiots who unwittingly advance Putin’s interests.

Just ask Tucker Carlson, the poster boy for MAGA’s Putin Caucus. He traveled to Moscow to interview Putin because Carlson believes that major media outlets have not reported the truth about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Tucker Carlson believes that Putin will “tell the truth” about Russia’s invasion.

Remember that time when Putin assured the world he had no intention of invading Ukraine? See CBS News (2/24/22), Putin attacked Ukraine after insisting for months there was no plan to do so. Shortly after issuing those denials, Putin brutally attacked the civilian populations and infrastructure in Ukraine and kidnapped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian children. The International Court of Claims has issued an arrest warrant for Putin for the war crime of unlawful transportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

It is that Vladimir Putin—the fugitive war criminal and inveterate liar--that Tucker Carlson is preparing to lionize in an interview that will be lapped up by useful idiots who skitter at the mere arching of an eyebrow by Trump. As Trump prolongs a crisis at the US border and delays aid to Ukraine, he is serving Vladimir Putin’s interests first. Commentators are right in asserting that a megalomaniac has engineered a hostile takeover of the GOP—but it is not Trump. It is Putin.

How should we react? Should we despair? Should we shrink from another story that seems to turn the world on its head? No. We need only recognize that the rot in the GOP is beyond repair and that electing Joe Biden is a necessary condition to preserving democracy.

There is no gray area in the 2024 election. A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin. A vote for RFK Jr. is a vote for Putin. A vote for No Labels is a vote for Putin. Staying home is a vote for Putin. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Democracy. It’s that simple.

Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson showed political courage that is rare in Washington and notable legislative skill for an inexperienced leader in forcing a long-delayed $60 billion aid bill for Ukraine through the House of Representatives on Saturday.

Johnson put his own job in extreme peril to stand up for a democratic nation victimized by an unprovoked invasion by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and to bolster America’s leadership of the West(..)

P.S. Johnson saved America's face, but irreparable damage is already done by delays. Six months in war is equivalent to an entire era in peace.

MAGA Republicans have not gone anywhere and many Americans are ready to vote for these idiots. In Europe and other Western countries, no one is ready to make their security dependent on the whims of idiots. That is why it is most likely that the slogan "Made in Europe" will gain priority in the defence industry and arms procurement.

Changes are already taking place not only in the defense industry, but also in other areas! Europeans don't naively look at America with rose-colored glasses. American culture doesn't look cool anymore. American business will lose billions of dollars thanks to MAGA's party of idiots...!!!!

[samkat10423]

New town

So, you’ve probably been wondering, “What the heck has crazy samkat been doing sim-wise lately?” Or maybe not. But have no fear, I’m here to tell you! Due to unfortunate family matters - my ex-sister-in-law had to have a bilateral mastectomy with removal of adjoining lymph nodes right before Thanksgiving, and we’ve been helping her. Luckily her original Stage 4 diagnosis has been downgraded. She’ll still need radiation and chemo, but that original death sentence has been delayed. Once her new appointments are scheduled, I’ll be helping her get to her treatments, because if you’ve ever been through this with someone - and I have, for my late father - they can’t take themselves for appointments. It’s just too physically exhausting - not to mention the emotional drain. 

But enough of that. I didn’t get my Sims Christmas in Cape Garner, so I’ve moved on to other things. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of Chinese dramas - am so hooked!!! - and decided to make an Asian town. 100% American, with German, Danish, Greek, and Welsh background, but what the heck! So, I began the hunt for an Asian world, and sadly couldn’t really find much. I did play in that Mayumachi world for a bit, but the lots are all so frammin TINY!!! And I kept getting those annoying, “Your idiot sim is stuck again!” messages. So, I moved on. After trying several that I didn’t really like, I decided to use the old Banyan Bend world from the Sims Crossings and just make my own town. It’s not very authentic, but what the heck! This is the Sims after all.

Anyway, this is my new city hall - called Taiha Hall. It houses my police and political careers. Right now, it’s just an empty shell with the 2 rabbit hole rugs. And surprise, surprise! I built it myself. Based it on some pictures I saw, but otherwise it’s all me! Go, samkat! BTW, Banyan Bend was a remake of Twinbrook, so this is where the old city hall was. I also just used the original central park - just changed out some trees and added that carousel.

This lot is across the street from the business lot in the Twinbrook. (I left the business lot the way it was). Anyway, I think this one was created by Shady over on MTS. It was originally a Late-Night-type apartment build, but I converted it into a community lot. There’s an elixir store on the bottom level, then a tiny eatery, a phone store, and finally a small arcade. I call it Heyoka Elixirs and Potions. (Thanks to Sandy for your phone store items and those town posters!)

This lot replaces the one where the grocery and bookstore were. It’s called the Shuzhang Shopping Mall and has a grocery store, bookstore, small diner, and a dress shop. Thanks to @grandelama​! I use your Sims 1 and curbing items a lot! And @mspoodle1​! I use your bike cc in all my towns! 

This lot I showed up in a post ages ago, when I was redoing Banyan Bend. It was created by a lady over on youtube and is called the Chocolate house. It’s where the bistro used to be in Twinbrook.

Behind it, I placed this lot by Flora over on MTS. It’s called the Yanaka Print Store and is zoned as an Art Gallery. I extended that bluish build on the end, pretty much gutted everything inside, then replaced everything with all the art stuff - easels, sculpting and glass-blowing thingies and art pieces. I also redid the signage and added a lot more clutter on the outside.

[jechristine]

The American politics anon here. I’m going to send you the questions in two separate asks, mainly because I realized that my second question is based on my opinion, which I accept could be wrong and that there’s a probability that that opinion can change.

Question: why are there only two political parties in the USA and with the population that size is red/blue not maybe too simplistic?

I will say, I’m coming from a place of ignorance and I could Google the answer but I want an opinion not perpetuating bias. I also just like reading the essays you sometimes post.😅

Hi! Sorry for the delay.

So one part of the answer is that there are not only two political parties here. We have as many parties as voters want, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party probably being the biggest national parties outside of Democrats and Republicans. The Working Families Party is (relatively) strong in NYC, for one local example.

One of our most famous politicians, Bernie Sanders, is a self-styled Democratic Socialist who was elected Vermont Senator as an Independent (not affiliated with the two major parties) although he ran for POTUS in the Democratic primary for the nomination from the Democratic Party.

The issue is that no party outside of the Democrats and Republicans can really get a foothold here. They are all tiny and insignificant. Occasionally a candidate for a third party like Ralph Nader (Green Party), Ross Perot (Independent/Reform Party), Ron Paul (Libertarian), or Bernie (Democratic Socialist) will garner enough national attention for some voters to consider their parties’ platforms, and politicians like them can win seats in Congress if they’re elected locally, but there is only ever going to be one or two and they won’t have real power. They ultimately caucus (vote) with either the Democrats or Republicans.

So the question then is Why can’t other parties get a foothold here?

The main reasons are the ways that we elect representatives. For one, our president is elected separately from senators (our Congressional “upper chamber”) and House reps (our Congressional “lower chamber”). In presidential election years, our ballot shows who do you want for president, for senate, and for House rep? And you vote for each separately. For another, we usually use a winner-take-all method to determine who “won” an election in each state. Take the presidential election. In most states, a person need only to win a plurality (the most votes) to win all of the states “electoral” votes. A third party candidate can win a huge 20% of the votes—and that rarely happens—but even if so, but if the Republican won 39% and the Democrat won 41% percent, the Democrat would win all of the state’s electoral votes. And then we tally up who has the most electoral votes. Because of entrenched, institutionalized power, the third part is rarely going to be able to compete with the fundraising, organization, and household familiarity as the two major parties. The Senate and the House work the same. It’s very rare that a third party has any chance, so the states all end up going “blue” or “red.”

For these reasons, also, voters tend to be wary of throwing away/wasting their votes. Personally, I would support a Socialist in every election, but if I vote for a person who’s never going to win, I essentially help out the Republican (right) by not giving my vote to the Democrat (left), the person with an actual chance of winning. So for me, when the Democrats are choosing a candidate I vote for the left-most person running, but once that candidate is chosen, I always vote Democratic. That’s why Bernie ran in the Democratic primary for the Democratic Party’s nomination. He didn’t want to be a “spoiler” like Ralph Nader was in 2000. Nader siphoned off just enough of Al Gore’s votes to cost him several states and the entire election. The consequences are staggering when you remember that Gore was already committed to curbing climate change in 2000. Instead we got an idiot religious fundamentalist whose endless foreign wars and all the death and suffering that came with them made all his friends & cronies very rich.

The fact that there’s developed de facto two parties only means that each party generally tries to be a “big tent” as it can, trying to keep its pretty diverse coalitions together and away from the other party.

So then the next question is Why do we have this winner-take-all approach to assigning representatives?

For the presidency, this approach isn’t in our Constitution and isn’t mandated. States can decide how to distribute their electoral votes. When party leaders realized that they could maximize the vote for their preferred candidates through winner-take-all, they went with that. Now it’s so entrenched that it would be difficult to change.

Senate seats were initially chosen by state governments (legislatures), but that was changed by an amendment so that Senators are now elected by popular vote in the same winner-take-all model.

House seats and local state and city/county elections would be the best opportunity for third parties to get a foothold, but the infrastructure and familiarity that the two national parties have trickles all the way down to dominate even small elections.

So the two parties have worked more like monopolies, consolidating power and streamlining their processes to accrue more power most efficiently. It’s not good.

Let me know if you have follow-up questions! And send your other. There are intersections among this system and economic and racist calculations that our founders made and that are still with us, which I haven’t even gotten into.

[vivaciouscynner]

oh right, i forgot about the choose your own adventure story again. Sorry. It's been absurdly busy. I can usually bang one out before going to bed if I don't care about quality

i guess while i'm here i'll update you on Divinity and Her Flaws: So yeah, Chapter 12 still in progress. I really don't have a timeframe when it'll be done. I have very specific and important scenes to put in and because I DO care about the quality, it's taking me a long time to get sentences and paragraphs to sound right.

I swear my process is like:

just write a simple sentence, get the thought out

okay now describe this

DON'T FUCKING FORGET HER TAIL... AND... AND HER EARS

DON'T FORGET HOW THINGS SMELL, OMG GO BACK, DID YOU FORGET TO DESCRIBE .... THE LEAF?!?!?! OH YOU BIG FUCKING IDIOT!

wait that's an american saying. make everything easy to translate

i don't know what i'm doing

cry

[everyday i- punches wall meme]

delete

retry

goddamn it, is it night or day now? why is it night? didn't they just wake up? Wasn't in morning in the last paragraph?

screaming

well that's enough writing today

The writing: "Adora giggled."

so, you know, buttery smooth writing - no troubles at all haha

Just also know that I have like work and school to do which unfortunately has higher priority. So I apologize for those delays - i am suffering lol.

I also need to read a little more to get INTO writing mode because my writing degrades if that's all I do.

ANYWAY, that's where I'm at.

[sheetmusiclibrarypdf]

Irving Berlin: Puttin' on the Ritz Jazz Arrangement (sheet music)

Irving Berlin: Puttin' on the Ritz Jazz Arrangement with sheet musicPlease, subscribe to our Library. Thank you!Musical structureLyricsLyricsSheet Music download here.Browse in the Library:

Irving Berlin: Puttin' on the Ritz Jazz Arrangement with sheet music

https://vimeo.com/494625932

"Puttin' On the Ritz" is a song written by Irving Berlin. He wrote it in May 1927 and first published it on December 2, 1929. It was registered as an unpublished song August 24, 1927 and again on July 27, 1928. It was introduced by Harry Richman and chorus in the musical film Puttin' On the Ritz (1930). According to The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin, this was the first song in film to be sung by an interracial ensemble. The title derives from the slang expression "to put on the Ritz", meaning to dress very fashionably. This expression was itself inspired by the opulent Ritz Hotel in London. Hit phonograph records of the tune in its original period of popularity of 1929–1930 were recorded by Harry Richman and by Fred Astaire, with whom the song is particularly associated. Every other record label had their own version of this popular song (Columbia, Brunswick, Victor, and all the dime store labels). Richman's Brunswick version of the song became the number-one selling record in America. The song was featured in the 1974 Mel Brooks horror/comedy Young Frankenstein. The song is performed by Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) and his monster (Peter Boyle). The song also received renewed popularity in 1982 when Taco, a Dutch musician, recorded and released a new version of the song. Taco's version was accompanied by a music video, which aired on MTV and other music video networks and programs. Musical structure The song is in AABA form, with a verse. According to John Mueller, the central device in the A section is the "use of delayed rhythmic resolution: a staggering, off-balance passage, emphasized by the unorthodox stresses in the lyric, suddenly resolves satisfyingly on a held note, followed by the forceful assertion of the title phrase." The marchlike B section, which is only barely syncopated, acts as a contrast to the previous rhythmic complexities. According to Alec Wilder, in his study of American popular song, for him, the rhythmic pattern in "Puttin' On the Ritz" is "the most complex and provocative I have ever come upon." Lyrics The original version of Berlin's song included references to the then-popular fad of flashily dressed but poor black Harlemites parading up and down Lenox Avenue, "Spending ev'ry dime / For a wonderful time". In the United Kingdom, the song was popularized through the BBC's radio broadcasts of Joe Kaye's Band performing it at The Ritz Hotel, London restaurant in the 1930s. The song was featured with the original lyrics in the 1939 film Idiot's Delight, where it was performed by Clark Gable and chorus, and this routine was selected for inclusion in That's Entertainment (1974). Columbia released a 78 recording of Fred Astaire singing the original lyrics in May 1930 (B-side – "Crazy Feet", both recorded on March 26, 1930). For the film Blue Skies (1946), where it was performed by Fred Astaire, Berlin revised the lyrics to apply to affluent whites strutting "up and down Park Avenue". This second version was published after being registered for copyright on August 28, 1946.

Lyrics

If you're blue and you don't know where to go to Why don't you go where fashion sits Puttin' on the ritz Different types who wear a day coat Pants with stripes And cutaway coat, perfect fits Puttin' on the ritz Dressed up like a million dollar trouper Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper (super duper) Come let's mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks Or "umberellas" in their mitts Puttin' on the ritz Have you seen the well-to-do up and down Park Avenue On that famous thoroughfare with their noses in the air High hats and Arrow collars white spats and lots of dollars Spending every dime for a wonderful time If you're blue and you don't know where to go to Why don't you go where fashion sits Puttin' on the ritz Different types who wear a day coat Pants with stripes And cutaway coat, perfect fits Puttin' on the ritz

Sheet Music download here.

Read the full article

[the-firebird69]

direct.campingworld.com/rvdetails/new-travel-trailer-rvs/coleman-bunkhouse-10k-2316633

So Trump is next door and people don't believe him when he says he's going to try and do the right thing and such they never do and he's going to die. People should not believe him he's a stone cold liar and he is lying to our son saying he's going to get him something I mean this guy's a huge a****** I want people to be an a****** of ours to this guy's Trump and his people. Is it venomous snake he has to be held in regards as to what he is he's going on trial for Mar-A-Lago at the end of July they say and they said they're setting the date and you can look at nothing in court or you can select it and she put a calendar up and it says late July so they put their selections in and our sun turns around and says I don't know why the f*** they're doing that why they would delay a trial for a trial where you can't have the documents in it site both sides are idiots and that's what it is his daughter is judge. So soon they're playing this game in public about choosing classified documents and you should not be able to have any in court and our son Johnson says it's kind of a joke on you because they come out and they'll give you the file right and they'll have one page and it'll list what it was and the clearance level and you're f***** cuz that's all they need to say. And everybody knows it so your daughter is not going to be able to say anything. You should at least check about if they can show it and they're saying no now you're saying that you checked it that's something that you want to look at in court and it doesn't matter because you're legally not going to be allowed to by the federal government it's treason again and you want to try and committed again. That's the way I look at it. You have a certain clearance level on each document because the f*** what's inside it you want to have it after you were let go from the job. Turns around and says who the hell would not know to put it that way I'd say the judge I judge the judge is not you it doesn't like you. And they don't have to present the documents as to what's inside you're the one who came up the idea to try and do it and the American public says who the hell is this guy to open our secret documents is it in and during a court case opening them the first place was a f****** keeping them that his house was a f****** now he wants to repeat it. And that's what it looks like. To everybody. Even the judge was wondering what the hell you're talking about no just letting you sit there and screw yourself. I woke up this morning to these two yelling at each other Dave and Trump and they were down the street no they're out in front of the house and the sun was woken up a little I was wondering what the hell it was he doesn't see the truck lights and after about 20 minutes he fell back asleep but the city outside yelling at each other and someone across the street said I told you to move on and they got what that meant now they're in trouble and they know it a little and they're doing all sorts of stupid s*** to people who want them out of the apartment and yeah these weird queer people like these two exist and a lot of them get killed and we hate them. I'm going to have to do a lot more strict things to these idiots they're treated like children and they need to be treated and tried and helped responsible like adults and we're going to go ahead and do it I'm putting the order out now and I know how to say it. So I want them out we need them out we have to have them out and we're going to make them leave we are also going to flush out anybody supporting him being an a****** and we are going to ruin them and we also really need to get him out of office in his cronies and people should start firing his cronies to make it a reality.

There's several lawmakers who want to rename Dulles international airport as Trump international airport and he was the airport was named after Dwight d Eisenhower who went over and save the whole bunch of idiots from being killed by their own he also wants to be put on they want him to be put on the $500 bill a few other really stupid things our son says he's a rebel but he's not a good one and he's very evil to most of the other rebels and they know about it now and he murders his own family is a disgrace to the country and you should not be allowed anywhere near DC not to mention having people trying to put him on a new currency value in the USA he should be hung for what he's done nobody wants to hear this s*** about this moron. All over the world are talking about how stupid Americans are and basically they're they're pretty stupid people here you idiots run the place are hit with TBI almost half of you so stupid now your leadership is dying and it's 50% gone. And the pseudo empire 2 all your retards are getting killed who run things believe it or not your people do not know how to run stuff without leaders you're top dogs are jackasses right now they're Manning up again he lost an additional 3 million each in the past hour heavy fighting developed. And the numbers are going up of dead leaders. The morlock we're up to about 50% now it's 55% and we mean gone forever the warlock where the pseudo empire were at 40% now they're in 45%. It's going to happen like this here in this wonderful place. This more happening too all of the Mac morlock are gearing up and it is mostly them still at the Cavern entrances they're fat asses in the way. And they're going to enter tonight and they're going to all die and we're going to use it as cover and we're going to raise our kju using their blood and and sinew and bone. They doing us no doubt about it we are going to use you up it's you're presenting yourself in that way. You freaking idiot losers. We think by Friday your leadership should be gone and yeah you'll be easier right now it's not so difficult. Yeah 55% and that's of last year. The getting ready to mount a large-scale attack of our own on you imbeciles all over the world. It will be massive we have prepared for you a nice army of nights in White satin to kill you and people that look like you and we're going to send them at you and all over the place and it's for what you're saying you're going to do nobody says that stuff to us. Or we will arrive on your doorstep with guns out. It's happening now we're going to see you shortly. Little ships that went up into the Midwest are gone and you're saying you're going to attack and you will send more into those three base areas we will have only one or two more waves of that nature and we will control those bases in areas.

Furthermore when the sending this waves in they send them up the river and it will atritt the remaining forces and we will start taking territory for real up there and not wait for them to fall in a row and our father and mother said it this morning. It will be much faster and safer we will have preparations for the whole bunch that will start taking effect and we will build up and we rip their ships out of their hands tired of listening toddlers too. You have to understand that you are killing yourself by doing what you're doing here in punta Gorda I've never seen so many people be despicable to one person is valuable you're a bunch of ignorant pieces of s*** can't believe how f****** stupid you are take someone's money and you think they're going to be happy with you it's the first one you should know you get killed for it everyday by other people. People in fisherman's village were not happy with his comments and said he'll pay for it and every time you do that I take tons of stuff from you and you're so stupid you can't tell it's us at all I'm going to rip my shitload out of your hands tonight and he said that today no it was yesterday but we took the s*** too tons of it I'm going to take tons of it from you again a lot more and I'm moving out right now

Thor Freya

Olympus

We'll finally get revenge on this pile of crap here you're all going to die a horrible death and if you're going to die for us

Hera

You're so dumb you see it's coming you know it's going to happen and you don't know what's going to happen at all is what really is so you should save your act as a different effect on your own people here yeah you're stupid and you don't know it

Zues

You say you're going to die and you feel sad you think you're fooling people with him it makes me angry

Tommy f

You're the one who finally toasts us and puts us into a pyramid so it makes sense is it a real pyramid

Trump

Certainly looks like one and it's after the incident with the ship in Florida and yeah you're a stupid person who goes up in your oryx and she's thishivk. No we don't like you people at all you're running around saying this dumb stuff to us keeping every penny from the kid and he's building up for some sort of attack and we have to get rid of you cuz we can't tell what he's doing. And everybody's saying it and nobody cares if you die. You're going to constantly at me doing stupid s*** just like Batman is a nutcase and you're a lunatic the only one who should be at me is not doing it and says that these people hurt me and they had me doing the first place for the max and yeah they're under the influence and they can't help it I can't wait till the attack these guys and hear what they say to them. They can hear it send the senior to their men in the tunnels and they're screaming it on megaphones and big ones is causing their ears to explode the ones that are too close and they're screaming you're nothing we had to do it go home or you're all die and they don't and they all die and you keep saying it too they keep saying it too and it's so horrible nightmare down there

Tommy f

We're done we're done we're not trained for tunnel warfare and we should take a break but we can and it's because of what they're saying to me. You should hear what they say about you they say a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff about him and he says they're like us in a way they get killed by stuff they can't see and they just keep opening their mouths and shortly it's going to be a lot of it and I understand something somehow are feeding something we got to get out of here

Trump

Yeah we believe you he's such a little kid and a little girl from Trump I'm opening up the January 6th committee and I'm going to get you up there to DC

Tommy f

I don't care anymore I'm not running for president no I am but I don't care about it I'm going to let cheeseman do it

Trump

Good we'll have to stop him too

Tommy f

I thought I told you what we do if you kept doing a Tommy f

Trump

We're going after you fools now you need your stuff your weakness but only after your stashes and cashes we have tons of you in and we have to do it now

Tommy f

Yeah I guess you're continuing I am an arrogant swine and I keep doing stupid things I guess that's how it goes

Trump

Olympus

[we-do-a-little-developing]

Tapes and combat mechanics

My game will use cassette tapes as weapons, with all 3 having a different primary/secondary attack, hence the code in the last post. There will be a slight delay with attacks changing as the tape animation plays, with a tape being inserted into the tape player

This is my model for the cassette player. It's inspired by the Walkman and the ECHO player from Borderlands 3. The two decorations either side are from two playable tapes, and I just think they looked cool. There are also stickers on the back, namely the American Idiot album cover and the sticker from the Nimrod album - more will be added

aforementioned inspiration

This is Tape 1 - Scout. The music it plays is upbeat and energetic, reflecting the more active playstyle encouraged by the attacks given by the tape - namely the risk-vs-reward bat that applies a 'stunned' statues effect, briefly stopping the enemy from attacking, and a single-barrelled shotgun that is most effective at close range.

This is Tape 3 - Sniper. The played music is a lot calmer and maybe a little jazzy, reflecting the more laid-back playstyle encouraged with the slow-firing but hitscan and high-damage rifle and a dash secondary ability to help keep the player at an effective range

This is Tape 3 - Soldier. The music is more percussion-heavy and militaristic to reflect the playstyle encouraged by the primary rocket [which can be used as mobility at the cost of health] and a secondary melee that does a lot of damage if used whilst airborne

When it comes to healing, I have 3 options: 1] no. All damage is permanent until the fight ends. This makes the battle considerably more difficult 2] healing via damage done. This system is used in games such as Ultrakill and encourages more of an aggressive playstyle, but I likely won't be able to implement the mobility mechanics to keep up 3] healing manually. This requires the player to cease attacking and play an animation of them rewinding the tape. Because of this, they have to make snap risk-vs-reward decisions as opposed to the snowballing health system above

[hedonianow]

really did have the most amazing weekend. went out for a fancy rooftop bar with some new friends then to a regular dancey bar for dancing then to a karaoke bar then lyfted home & found a blue gatorade in the lyft then i barely remember ordering a chicken cutlet gyro at the bodega. saturday i woke up sooo nice and late and got some work done and also made it to the gym which was huge bc normally it's really hard for me to get up enough energy to go thank you levothyroxine! & then i just chilled i think, took bean on an extra long walk. then sunday was my big social day, i was supposed to meet corrina and some other folks for lunch but her bus up to new york was delayed so i just went to magnolia bakery bc it was right by the american folk art museum which is where i was about to go with my new friend emma and it was really cool honestly!! and then i went home and ordered hartbreakers and laid down in preparation for the frankie cosmos show which i showed up to at seven like an idiot but because i was in line so early i posted about it and elisheba saw my story about it and came thru so we basically ignored the 2nd opener and frankie made me super emo like that girl is the only person who i think really understands me tbh. soo then kept talking with elisheba and went home and walked bean (all these days ofc start and end with walking bean). oh also saturday is when my debit card came so i got that activated and today i was FINALLY able to withdraw cash and do laundry and then i just got stuff done i went grocery shopping and knocked out some extra work so i'm gonna get paaaaaiiiid & i took a lovely shower & i made vegetable stock & used that to make a cauliflower soup that my fav coworker posted on slack the other day and it was soooo tasty and hearty. i'm really just astonished & proud to see how much i got done this weekend i've really come a long way from my days of just lying in bed doing nothing for hours and not being able to start any projects. there were def some ups and downs, i had a kind of triggering conversation with indra on thursday where she was like very sympathetic to me but also is still remaining friends with the old friendgroup that pushed me out and it's like ok so what is the truth. but i havent let it take me over or really even take over my conversations. anyway tomorrow is my last day at my current position at work and i get to go to therapy too! and tell melissa about all my progress. overall im really proud of io!!!!

[sanktpolypenbourg]

With trans matters I keep thinking, in my country we are usually one or two steps behind in progressive policies and culture compared to the Americans and the British, so the roller coaster ride will be to see if we imitate their progressive policies and jump over the whole transphobic backlash and reversal phase, or we use their transphobic backlash and reversal phase as an excuse to abort our progressive policies, OR we are really idiotic enough to do their transphobic backlash and reversal phase with the usual delay and then the civil rights recovery phase also with the usual delay

Surely we can streamline this by imitating only the good parts, right

[scarfacemarston]

All of Mary-Beth’s Journals

I forgot to include part 1.  Instead of doing it separate, I thought it would just be easier to put them all together. She clearly has Arthur in mind for some of this. Her writing isn’t my cup of tea but hey, she’s trying.  Transcript 1: The American Wilderness:A Romance by Mary Elizabeth Nom de Plume They called it the wild west for a reason. It was a land that pulled all those towards it who wanted adventure and all those who were running from elsewhere. It was a land of gunslingers, outlaws, and beautiful women and wild women; the question is, which one of these was the beautiful Marcelle /Marcelle was a French princess on the run from a terrible Duke who lived in France but was chasing her because she would not be his bride. She also realized at the same time that was total tripe and that she should go hang herself for having ideas way above her station.

Transcript 2:  A Frenchwoman on the Run by Lizzie Nom de Plume: She was beautiful. Everyone said that about her. In her presence, they seemed to shine extra bright, and the birds sing extra loud. She was dangerous. They said that about her, too. She had killed. Not for pleasure but to save herself. She had been born a royal but given up for adoption when her parents were killed in a bloody revolution. She was an idiot that wrote a load of nonsense down, then gave up and stuck with hating herself.

Transcript 3: The city was shrouded in mist. It was dark and frightening, and anybody who could had long since hidden themselves away in their houses.Saint Denis had the French and  Spanish, and now it was American yet always the same. A place of beautiful decay where the proud hopes of people get lost and delayed in the pleasures and warmth of the city that would never let you leave. They came here from all over the world. Adventures traders , fur traders  from the north, slaves and their masters, everyone who had something to tell or something or something to buy. Deep in the shadows, a figure lurked, the figure was beautiful , yet if anyone got too close she moved away nervously. Happy to hide herself in the mists that rolled in the nearby sea. Those same terrible seas had brought her from France. She was running away from her husband, a fearsome french duke who had married her and then punished her brutally. Even here, she was afraid of his tempter. She was a brave woman and not afraid to meet her fate, yet her husband seemed possessed by evil. Shortly after they married, she had learnt that his family was cursed. It was a terrible curse that possessed the men of the family and turned their hearts black. And she - the woman who I haven’t given a name yet -  had run away from it in order to survive. Oh Mary-Beth, please don’t bring up slavery. It kind of comes across as “oh, look how charming these times are!” Maybe it’s just me being sensitive, though.

[talkingtea]

what is your thoughts on the whole “Letitia Wright refusing to get vaccinated and slowing down the production of black panther” situation? I think she’s just being selfish and ridiculous. This movie isn’t about her, it’s about honour Chadwick’s legacy and her delaying it by being a nuisance is such a shitty thing to do. Idk if anyone also follows 9-1-1, but they have recently written off michael (athena’s ex husband) because the actor that plays him refuses to get the vaccinated. it’s crazy bc his character is vaccinated and it’s not fair on actor that plays his onscreen love interest bc they had to write him out too. he basically put someone out of work. this vaccine hesitancy is baffling to me bc vaccines have always existed?? i don’t understand why people are treating being vaccinated as a brand new phenomenon

We think what Letitia is doing is incredibly selfish and her character should be recast. As you mentioned this movie isn’t about her, it’s about honoring the legacy of Chadwick and his character. We have no doubt that this has been an emotional experience for everyone involved and instead of it being a smooth journey it’s been steeped in controversy and all of it begins and ends with her. If she’s too wrapped up in whatever conspiracy theory she believes in this week to get a vaccine that will not only allow production to re-start but will help to protect herself and others then she needs to be replaced. Period.

As far as any other actors (or anyone else with job) goes if they’re willing to lose their livelihood because they don’t want to take a shot then they’re idiots. Selfish, self-absorbed, ignorant idiots. Vaccine hesitancy is a normal and—to a point— valid excuse to be wary of the vaccines. At the same time vaccines have been around for a very long time and unless your parents were hardcore anti-vaxxers then you’ve been getting vaccines since you were a baby namely, Polio, chickenpox, Hep A & B, Measles/Mumps/Rubella, etc. Vaccines are not some new thing the US government invented to force Americans to take a vaccine so they can insert a chip in our bloodstreams to track us 🙄. No, that’s what those cell phones we as a society can’t part with are there for. But conspiracy theorists typing furiously on their phone never want to have that conversation. Go figure.